


Yuuga Isn't Dead

by callingCujo



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alice Isn't Dead AU, Dialogue Heavy, Dialogue-Only, Everyone besides Shinsou is technically just mentioned, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 10:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13657239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callingCujo/pseuds/callingCujo
Summary: "..My name is Shinsou Hitoshi, if you can hear this."





	Yuuga Isn't Dead

\-- Connecting... --

 

“My name is Shinsou Hitoshi, if you can hear this. I’m driving a truck for a company called Bay & Creek Shipping, and I’m recording myself in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, there’s someone out there listening. Buckle up, ‘cause I need to get this all out to someone, even if that someone isn’t even there.

“I was married. I guess I still _am_ married. Are you listening to this, Yuuga? I thought you were dead, you know. There was a funeral and everything. Your friends all cried for you. _I_ cried for you. How could you do something like this to me? Weren’t you supposed to be the nice one?

“..You’re probably not even listening. Why would you be? You obviously don’t care enough. I was fine with accepting the fact that you’d just mysteriously died, and then I _saw_ you. On the news. I thought I was going crazy at first, Yuuga. It was surreal. Every other broadcast, I could see you there. You weren’t front and center, but you were always there in the background, looking at the camera. Do you know what that did to me, seeing you like that?

“..I went to therapy for a while. Tried to convince myself I wasn’t seeing you. But it didn’t work. God, I.. I barely left my _house,_ Yuuga. I was so alone.

“I started to look for you after a while. I’d tape all the news broadcasts I could find and, of course, you were on most of them. You’d be in Paris one day and in Los Angeles the next, it was crazy. I started to think I might be going insane again.”

* * *

“I used to think it was nice, driving over rolling hills. There wouldn’t be any kind of property for miles and miles, and there would be the occasional herd of cows, or flock of sheep. I don’t even know if I’m using those words correctly.

“It’s all just too suffocating now. The repetition makes me go a little bit crazy if I focus on my surroundings for too long. Sometimes it’s only me on the road. Sometimes it feels like it’s only me on the road- or, anywhere. Sometimes when I stare at the road it’s like the land is repeating, over and over again, and I might never get out of whatever plains-filled state I’ve found myself in now. I might never make it to my delivery.

“But then there’s civilization again. Just when I think there might be nothing else in this world but plains and my truck, I’m surprised by the sudden appearance of a town. Some of them are so small that they don’t even show up on my map.

“Where are you hiding, Yuuga?”

* * *

“I couldn’t just sit there and obsess over news reports. I started to dig. Your old emails, the things of yours that I couldn’t bear to throw out.. There were so many things I didn’t know. I didn’t even know where you worked until I found an email to you from a company called Bay & Creek shipping. There were a lot more after I found the first one. They all were ordinary, all had various things people around the country had ordered.

“I quit my job and applied for that shipping company a day later. I just wanted something that could bring you closer to me again. Or at least something that would make you notice me.

“It’s amazing that I had no idea about all of this. It was like you were leading a whole secret life away from me. What was so bad about a shipping company that you couldn’t tell me what you were doing? What couldn’t I _know_ , Yuuga?

“..I guess that’s another reason I got this job. It was just too suspicious for there to never be anything up, you know?

“Hang on, I’m pulling over. I’ve been driving all night, I’m gonna get coffee.”

* * *

“Sometimes when the sun sets it feels like the sky is on fire. I feel on fire too, here in the front seat of a truck that belongs to an unassuming shipping company. The reds and yellows in the sky paint the seats a dark orange. You always used to complain about how you didn’t like warm colors. You’re so dramatic.”

* * *

“I’m whispering because I’m in the diner, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop talking. There’s someone strange here. He’s sitting in a booth by the corner and there’s a hood pulled up over his face. I thought he might be homeless, but he just paid fifty dollars for something that definitely didn’t even cost ten. I’m a little freaked out, Yuuga.

“I can’t really see him from here.. I’m trying to get a look at him without him knowing I’m looking, y’know? If he’s just some weird guy I don’t want to look like I’m creeping.

“He just gives me bad vibes, though.

“Shit, hold on. He’s walking over here.”

* * *

“I’m back in the truck. Holy _shit_ , Yuuga. I don’t think I believe what I just saw. The man, he just- he sat down across from me. Didn’t even invite himself or say anything. He just sat. And I could really see him up close.

“His hair was blue, and that was about the least scary thing about him. Mine’s purple, so it’s not like I have room to talk about differently colored hair, anyways. His hair was blue, and it was greasy, like he hadn’t showered in a week. It went down to his shoulders.

“His face was sunken in. His eyes looked hollow, and they were such a bright red. Isn’t that an odd color? One of your friends had red eyes, too, but they weren’t like this. These were eyes that could see right through you. You know when someone looks at you and you think they know you? That they can see right through everything you do and say? You used to give me looks like that all the time, and I thought it was amazing. This man wasn’t amazing. This man was terrifying.

“His lips were really chapped. It was like he’d never touched a tube of chapstick in his life, not that they’d work anyway. It bothered me, once he started to talk, how he’d just.. Ignore it. Wouldn’t even lick his lips. What kind of man does that? That’s how I knew he was  a psychopath, honestly.

* * *

“I haven’t passed an exit in a while. It never occurrs to me just how much empty space there is in the States. I liked it better in Japan, because you could never go this far without encountering something.

“I know I’ve said it before, but I feel alone out here. I feel so very alone.

“Sometimes another car will pass me and I wonder about them, wonder about the people inside. Are they full families, or is there someone in there who’s just as alone as I am? If I look close enough I can see inside. Recently I saw a middle-aged woman who had a dog in the backseat. It was cute. I prefer cats, though.

“Sometimes when I look at the cars the windows are so tinted that I can’t see anybody at all.

“Is there anybody in those cars, or are they phantoms? Are they people who don’t exist yet still manage to impact the world in a small way?

“Maybe I am the crazy one, out of us two. Are you a phantom, Yuuga? Sometimes I don’t even think you’re alive.”

* * *

“He talked to me for a while about life. That’s it, just.. Life. I don’t know what he gained from it, but it was sort of unnerving, hearing him speak. His voice was raspy, almost, and it sounded so out of place compared to the rest of the people in the diner. You know that sensation, Uncanny Valley? That described him in general, but mostly it described his voice. I don’t know if voices are included in Uncanny Valley, but nevertheless I’ll group his in with it.

“I excused myself after a while. My coffee was finished and I had to get back on the road to deliver God knows what, so I said goodbye and I got up and left. But he was waiting.

“In the parking lot, he had his hand on a man’s arm. One pinky was raised, and the man didn’t look alarmed at all. He didn’t look anything. Do you remember how you used to criticize artists who couldn’t draw expressions on the people they created? He looked like that. Like a beginner whose art wasn’t good enough that expressions could translate the way they should.

“The blue man- I’m calling him that, because of his hair- looked up and made eye contact with me, then he smiled. It wasn’t a natural smile, Yuuga. Smiles are supposed to comfort people, to make them feel better. But that wasn’t what his smile did.

“It looked like someone was stretching his lips out, almost. The dry skin looked like it was cracking even more, but I couldn’t tell. He lowered his pinky down, and-”

* * *

“Was it my fault that you left?”

* * *

"Sorry. I had to collect myself. I still don’t really believe what I saw. When he lowered his pinky down, Yuuga- the guy rotted. And I don’t mean that in some sick metaphorical sense. I mean, he literally started to _decay_ . What the _hell_ is this, Yuuga? Did you know about this? What are you playing at, huh?”

* * *

“I could never really understand you, but I liked to think that I could. You’re like an enigma to me and to everyone else. Am I ever going to come close to solving the puzzle? Was anything I saw real? Were you ever in love with me, Yuuga? Was I ever anything to you?”

* * *

“I know you’re not dead. You can’t be dead. You wouldn’t die. Yuuga, what’s happened to you? What does any of this have to do with Bay & Creek Shipping? Why am I even here?

“The sun is in my eyes again. I think it’s probably a metaphor. For what? I’ve got no idea. You would have made it into a metaphor. You were always all about really complicated metaphors. I liked that about you, it was kind of funny. I wonder if that was your way of saying you were a really complicated person.

“It’s about noon. I miss having someone to talk to besides an old radio. You were always really vocal. Always led all the conversations. It’s weird being the one that talks a lot.

“..I’ll find you, Yuuga.”


End file.
